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Reviews
John Carter (2012)
John Carter KUDDOOS Disney
A hot hot romance built on John Burroughs "Princess of Mars" that will unveil itself with repeated watching. It's a bit of a mumbler (many modern movies are with their complex audio mixes) that for us of the geezer class may cause us to need repeated watching to appreciate and to follow the fast moving highly complex plot. Still Lynn Collin's brilliant performance as Dejah Thoris can keep even the most jaded of us geriatric cases teetering on the edge of our power chairs as she seduces the chauvinistic southern cavalry colonel John Carter (played by Stacy Keitch) who reluctantly takes the Princess of Mars under his wing and defeats evil in its 18th century incarnation. Burroughs of course wrote Princess of Mars during WWI so it is his idea what a a 18th century southern gentleman would have considered honor... Disney does a lavish job on this adaptation and should be complemented.
Butterfly (1981)
Classic Star Studded Camp Effort
It's been 20 plus years since I watched this masterpiece. I disagree strongly with the trash talk by the general run of reviewers who are blinded by this film's brilliance because they're shocked... mind you shocked to find European standards applied to an American film. I was riveted from the first frame to the last... and feel that Pia certainly deserved her golden globe... and for Orson, the final act was his greatest. In the end, Butterfly is an artistic effort by a fine ensemble that left me wordlessly wandering the streets of Port Townsend rejoicing that Hollywood had not completely sold out to the censors and bigots who had been squelching creativity in American cinema since the implementation of "the Hollywood production code" that had seemed to forever have doomed Hollywood's efforts to second-rate melodramas.
As Good as It Gets (1997)
Come on cut the sarcasm
I liked this movie the first time I saw it because of Nicholson's performance. But the more and more I see it the less I think of it. Helen Hunt's character really is a flawed human being... she represents all the ideals of modern women, bossy, irresponsible and opinionated. Why she got an Oscar for this I know not. The movie certainly is not "as good as it gets". It actually is a drag. None of the characters have significant redeeming qualities other than Nicholson whose brutal honesty often gets him in trouble with the weak socially corrupt characters he is surrounded with. Really, if taken as a satire on American society it has some value as the citified corrupt characters who live in a world of lies, irresponsibility, and deceit soon find out... Kudus to the building manager.